Tuesday, September 8, 2009

is it time to write about xkcd again? man, these deadlines happen to fast. luckily i have a guest person for tomorrow, I am pretty sure.

Ugh, that's some gross layout you've got there. We'll get to that.

First, to content: Ha, guys, people are making movies of kids' books, and they usually suck! What I love about xkcd is that Randall (or am I supposed to call him Mr. Munroe now?) always manages to make fun of things that are totally true and obvious, yet which no one is making jokes about already!

For example, Penny Arcade. People say those guys are funny, but they've never made comics about action-packed versions of childhood staples which only barely cling to their source material! Notonce! Thanks to Maleloth for pointing that penny arcade could never do this.

Or heck, here's another example: What xkcd is pointing out here is that crappy hollywood blockbuster directors are basically taking elements of your childhood and violently assaulting them, which is, again, not something anyone's ever commented on.

Harriet the Spy is not only totally a girls' book, but was already made into a movie. If the joke is supposed to be taking an actual phenomenon (books --> movies) and exaggerate it (as per usual comedy practice) he should have chosen something that is actually, you know, exaggerated. As in, something that would never in 10,000 years be made into a movie. Or at least something that is unlikely to be. Not something that already is a movie. That just confuses things.

Now for the layout. Gah, this is terrible. Way below his usual standards. Look at it - we have just shitloads of white space there. Serving no purpose, making it feel all unbalanced and weird. Makes it look like the page is failing to load.

so at the very, very least, center that top panel:

So much better. But still not great - you still have a lot of white space. It also gives equal emphasis to the "title" panel, the one at the end, as it does to the scenes from the movie. I think that last panel should get more emphasis, have a heavier finality to it, so it feels a little more like the end of a movie trailer (or, alternatively, looks more like a movie poster, depending on what you think he should be emulating). So I threw this together - sorry for the blur on the panels I had to enlarge, but that's how it goes. Just rough, proportions aren't quite right or anything, just to give you an idea of what I mean:

EH? isn't it better? Of course it is.

Randall: If you let me be your editor I swear I will be nice about it, and just work to make xkcd a better comic for everyone. If not me, please hire someone to edit these, you need it.

Posted by
Carl

312 comments:

634: Yet another time where randall draws a joke, then writes out the joke again at the end for the slow class. The comic is very meh, but not terrible. But the caption is really a perfect example of how so many xkcd's would be better tweets than comics. Just copy and paste, boom. No shitty drawing needed.

I don't see why randall can't make the alt-text at least even kinda flow from the comic. If he took out the "well" it would read much better.

To be fair, 618 is more of a joke based on the combination of two pop-culture references rather than this, which is more like a "take current situation to HILARIOUS extremes" joke (as exemplified in the PA comics). Just wanted to say that before all the xkcd-apologists got in here.

That doesn't mean that this joke isn't old and terrible and sucky, of course. It is all of those things.

It looks like that huge bump though is from where he entered a NYT comic-off. Or that's the best I can tell. Interesting that xkcd was on a pretty steep decline, then got a big boost, and looks like its kept the momentum. Any long time readers/haters have any insight?

633: Or maybe he could have drawn an entire scene with a guy at a desk and everything to fill up the top panel?

634: Yes, he explains the "joke" instead of drawing it.It's surprising how many people on the forums don't know what a Punnet square is. This is 7th grade biology."We'd have a better than even chance of adorable red hair."Does that line piss anybody else off?Yet more terrible dialog- and not in the good way (like Star Wars).

Justin: It could be the terminology. I mean, I learned that stuff without ever hearing it called a "Punnet square." On the other hand, I figured that's what it was referring to, so. I haven't personally checked the forums to see how dense they get over there, but I'll take your word for it.

I don't think that the fact that others have made this joke before makes the comic (633) a priori bad. However, it does place a much higher burden on the level of humour he needs to succeed, and he absolutely fails to fulfil this. He has made the observation that Michael Bay and his ilk like explosions, a lot, and tend not to be very original in their source material and applied that formula to a situation that does not normally feature explosions. That's the extent of the joke, and there are hundreds, thousands of similar ideas poorly done throughout the internet. To rise above the morass, there needed to be something else humorous apart from the initial idea, but it seems that it doesn't really in any way whatsoever even relate to Harriet the Spy. The joke is that Harriet the Spy is a children's book, and that's it. It's not enough.

On the plus side, the use of colour makes this a little more visually interesting than usual. Of course, this is rather offset by the horrendous layout.

I think that 634 is (yet another) perfect example of Mr R Munroe simply not trying hard enough. It reads basically like a first draft. The idea has some potential and seems to echo the comic's glory days, but he doesn't go anywhere with it. I know he must be busy designing the Xkcd winter range (A Beret Man beret perhaps?) or something, but surely he can find more than 5 minutes every 48 hours to work on the comic...

Oh, great. Another Xkcd that I didn't get because I'm not a US citizen.Just recently Mr Munroe makes a lot of comics which are for North Americans only. Here's a list:

633 Harriet the Spy? Who is that?631 TGI Friday? Is that a photographer?626 Why does he put on sunglasses? (Ok, we have some TV programmes with CSI in their names here... never got around to watching one of them)623 First looked up in Wikipedia whether that is the real history of Oregon. It isn't. Oregon Trail was never distributed outside the USA.621 For someone who does not know the beer commercial, this comic is only depressing.617 Yeah, I heard about the professor and the policeman. I saw Xkcd and laughed about the funny idea that the president would invite them to have beer in the white house. Afterwards I found out that this has actually happened.

OK, so recently more than one third of the Xkcd comics is US centric, and Europeans won't understand them without research.

For comparison, I checked Xkcd #1 - #17, and of them only one, #9, I would not have understood at the time. And what a nice artwork it was! #4 and #7 are beautiful. I disagree with Carl that a webcomic has to be haha funny. #8 is not funny at all, but still much better than Xkcd nowadays.

Anon@12:07 - I'm not American, but I got the Harriet the Spy joke. The book is kind of a children's classic, although I guess it still might not be that big in Europe. Again with Oregon Trail - I played that when I was a kid, even if it wasn't ever technically distributed here. That TGI Friday thing though. That was irritating.

Also, I think once Michael Bay himself has started making Michael Bay jokes, there's not much point making Michael Bay jokes unless they're going to be really very clever. And this one wasn't.

Oh, come on. I'm european, and I got every one of those 'jokes' despite not being familiar with most of the subject matter.

"Harriet the Spy? Who is that?"I've never heard of Harriet the Spy either, but the comic alone (and the millions of jokes that people make that are exactly like this comic) is enough to infer that it's some sort of children's classic.

"TGI Friday? Is that a photographer?"The condiments on the table and the phrase "X is a family establishment" wass enough for me to infer that it's some sort of restaurant without ever having heard of it.

"(Ok, we have some TV programmes with CSI in their names here... never got around to watching one of them)"

Then the problem is just the fact that you're not familiar with some running gag in a show, not that it's US centric, is it?

"First looked up in Wikipedia whether that is the real history of Oregon. It isn't. Oregon Trail was never distributed outside the USA."

And I've never played it either, but the fact that there's a shitload of people making a lot of crappy Oregon Trail jokes on the internet made me at least familiar with it.

"For someone who does not know the beer commercial, this comic is only depressing."

Alright, I didn't get the reference here either.

"Yeah, I heard about the professor and the policeman. I saw Xkcd and laughed about the funny idea that the president would invite them to have beer in the white house. Afterwards I found out that this has actually happened."

I don't know where you live, but this has been in newspapers and on the evening news over here.

I'm all for criticizing XKCD, but let's do it on the grounds of something valid and not on "I didn't get it because I refuse to give things even the slightest bit of thought when I suspect that there's some sort of American thing in there."

Anyway: Carl's edit was a million times better. I honestly can't think of any reason why Randall would put all that whitespace there, except total fucking laziness. It's like he wrote the bottom panels, and then felt like he had to drive the joke home so he just added an explanatory panel above it. Why he didn't just tack it on in front is a mystery.

Also: "adorable red hair" is on par with "What an adorable stuffed giraffe." in terms of awfulness, for me.

By the way, Punnet squares are grade school material dealing with the outdated Mendelian model. This is like two "chemists" on a date discussing phlogiston.

Likewise, geneticists would discuss this. Biologists would discuss how Oceanic birds make colorful, originally designed nests to attract mates or how squids are possibly able to communicate through variable pigmentation. This would be like two physicists playing with curved mirrors and a candle.

Lastly, who the fuck plans their children on the first date? Ok, so maybe it went that well but 30%!?

This strip was patronizing as hell. But hey, at least it'll win more fans than it'll lose!

Ar-Pharazon: Are Punnet squares really that useless? Sure, most genes aren't simple enough that they can be expressed in terms of a few alleles, but some are. Like the ones mentioned in the comic. And if I could remember anything from my intro biology class last year, I could throw in a few more examples.

I found today's (634) amusing. Not brilliantly sophisticated, probably a ton of things you can rant about if you try, but funny. The kind of short, silly geeky joke xkcd does well. (Plz not to trouble me with whether Punnet Squares are still used, I do not need the biology haircut.)

633 sucked so very badly, even apart from layout (seriously, how could he have possibly not noticed how awful it looks before putting it up?), and despite being artistically above-average, apart from layout. Contrary to Mr. Fred, being totally unfamiliar with the book does hurt the joke, unless you can infer what the book was about - if I knew, or could guess, I might find it mildly amusing. As it is, sometimes xkcd is funny once you've looked up all the relevant stuff on wikipedia, but not this one.

Ar-Pharazon: So, because the comic is "too simple", and about a field you know a lot about, it's bad? Don't you guys usually complain when XKCD has a math/physics joke that you don't get it? Seems kinda hypocritical to me...

justin: are you pissed off at "adorable red hair" or "better than even chance"?

For the record, I have to admit that usually after meeting a new boyfriend's parents I can't help but doing some mental calculations on the possible hair/eye color combinations of our hypothetical children. I'm a physicist, not a biologist; maybe it's a girl thing.

Whoops. Didn't mean to put the second one in there. But I did find two more...http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2009/04/comic-567-if-i-could-go-back-in-time.htmlhttp://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2009/04/comic-564-shoot-me-now.html

We are not The Borg. Carl not getting a reference doesn't mean that the rest of us didn't get it.

Unless by "you guys" (second person plural) you meant "Carl" (third person singular.) Then you should have been more specific, because it's really hard to have a sensible discussion when you don't say what you mean.

Yes. Boring jokes are boring, even if you get the obscure reference. The only xkcd I didn't "get" right away was 514, even though I'm familiar with the concept of relativity, because the reference was pretty vague.

If you say so. Or, it could just be a poorly-made reference. Or, none of us are omniscient and can't be expected to understand 100% of what is put in front of us. I'd say my 99.84% success rate of understanding xkcd comics is pretty good, considering that not even xkcd FANS get the references in every single comic. One need only check the official xkcd forum for proof of that.

Asher: Ah yes, falling back on the whole "it sucks because it sucks" argument...

No, he's saying "we hate it because it sucks." READING COMPREHENSION.

You still have not, to my knowledge, defined XKCD's target demographic. You dumb fuck.

And at least half those comics aren't "I didn't understand this mathematics, therefore it's stupid." I mean, the one where it's the Windows Time Estimator thing? You seriously think Carl didn't get it? Are you retarded?

Worst-case scenario, if you don't get an XKCD because of the math and physics it involves, you can just look it up on Wikipedia or Wolfram Mathworld, because Randall never uses anything more difficult or in-depth than what you could find in the first-paragraph summary on Wikipedia.

If you don't get an XKCD because the joke is so fucking terrible and buried under layers and layers of shit, that's a different story.

Seriously. you said we hated them because they were too simple and too obscure, implying we were either idiots or hated them for some other, more sinister reason.

Since I can't convince you we're not idiots, I proposed that the common thread is not that they are about "stuff," but that they are all bad. They are bad for the reasons spelled out in any of the posts you listed. Most of which simply note that it is either simple or obscure, and then move on to the meat of the criticism.

But I'm really calling troll because "you're wrong because you're wrong" is something brought up here semi-frequently, but not within the two days you've been posting. It's not rock solid, but it's pretty good evidence you are a troll.

Hmmm. The only time I ever thought about what my hypothetical kids might look like was when I was dating a dude who is 6'5" (I'm 5'3) and was wondering if the fetus would end up growing so large that it'd end up punching its way out of me chest-burster style.

and also, is the "adorable red hair" thing some sort of message from Randall that we shouldn't make fun of gingers? I wouldn't really think so but it does kind of fit in with his usual preachy tone. Or maybe I'm just being nasty...

Femaletoth: You're one to talk about reading comprehension, I already said I didn't mean to post that time estimator one...

Also, it looks like other people are trying to pretend to be me, so I guess I'll have to get a name to prevent that from happening in the future. But I don't feel like getting an account on here, and this blog's software won't let me just use a name, so I'll use an appropriate XKCD as my "website"...

Adam: Yes, I am still here, who knows why...Is it really that hard for you to tell the difference between crude mocking and a real person? Also, I already said I can use proper grammar, I'm just not careful here because I don't think it's important.

Oh, Lord, I just noticed what the link the non-Blogger-profile Autodidact is using goes to.

Anyway, your IQ may be "pretty high" but then so must you be--could someone who is simultaneously intelligent and not under the influence of marijuana produce such idiocy?

These attacks aren't baseless, remember. They're based on what you've said, how you've said it, and how you've reacted to other people. Even if you don't think that's a very strong base, you must admit it's not an absence of one.

Femalethoth: More baseless attacks... Do you even care about xkcd, or just insult everything you see? I have learned on my own how to handle your type of attacks... I doubt you have ever produced anything worthwhile yourself, much less a webcomic...

Femalethoth: More baseless attacks... Do you even care about xkcd, or just insult everything you see? I have learned on my own how to handle your type of attacks... I doubt you have ever produced anything worthwhile yourself, much less a webcomic...

I HAVE produced a webcomic, and also a web commentary on a print comic. They were both infinitely worse than XKCD ever.

i grew up in the states, but under more of an Asian influence than an American one. Soooo I have never read Harriet the Spy, and don't think I've ever heard of it until now? Anyway it was fairly easy enough to guess that it was some random reference to a children's novel. I think that's how you can tell that xkcd sucks, when it's so formulaic that you can figure something like that out based on the way the joke is told.

T_A: I don't think we've ever complained about a joke because we don't get it. Keep in mind that there is a difference between asking, "Where is the joke?" and complaining, "I don't get it!" Also you are dumb. You keep bringing up the same points over and over again, when you've been told on numerous occasions that your points are invalid or just plain stupid. And yes, your choice of screenname and xkcd strip is very fitting, given your arrogance and lack of basic knowledge--you are apparently the type who refuses to believe that others might know more than you.

Amanda: I just pointed out a bunch of places where Carl admitted he didn't get the joke...of course, it got buried under all the impersonators and flaming. Also, please tell me what points I'm ignoring, otherwise I can only assume more basic attacks...which makes sense given you insult my intelligence immediately afterwards.

Okay. Carl admitting he didn't get the joke has never led to him not liking it SOLELY BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GET IT. Do you understand that? He points out that it is either a hugely obscure reference that really is not a joke, or that he didn't get it, looked it up, and found that the strip still sucked.

Other things: you point out that none of us have lives? Not true. Sometimes I get bored in lecture and talk to my friends! Otherwise I will comment on this here blog, where you are also commenting--does that mean you have no life? You have ignored that accusing us of having no lives means you fall into the same category each and every time you leave a comment.

You say we are not in the target audience. Mal has asked many times for you to explain what you consider the target audience. "People who like xkcd" cannot be considered a "target audience," and I would hope that someone with your high IQ would be able to realize why.

Those are the points you are ignoring. Also they are reasons why I can call you an idiot without being insulting; in your case, calling you an idiot is merely stating fact. Might be mean and blunt, but it isn't a baseless insult.

Please point out the points I ignored... so I can keep repeating the same tired arguments that have been shot down again and again... like that you guys really are in xkcd's target demographic... and that my mom doesn't really motorboat better than Megan...

"Okay. Carl admitting he didn't get the joke has never led to him not liking it SOLELY BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GET IT. Do you understand that? He points out that it is either a hugely obscure reference that really is not a joke, or that he didn't get it, looked it up, and found that the strip still sucked."There is such a thing as prejudice, you know. It's possible that he didn't like it because he didn't get it, and was still mad about not getting it even after he did...

"You say we are not in the target audience. Mal has asked many times for you to explain what you consider the target audience. "People who like xkcd" cannot be considered a "target audience," and I would hope that someone with your high IQ would be able to realize why."I've already said, the target audience is geek culture, which I have yet to see any proof that any of you are part of, by the way...

"Those are the points you are ignoring. Also they are reasons why I can call you an idiot without being insulting; in your case, calling you an idiot is merely stating fact. Might be mean and blunt, but it isn't a baseless insult."Really? Because, to me, insulting people you barely know, all of whom you know about are a few posts on a rather hateful blog, when you don't know anything about how they behave outside of this environment, that seems pretty baseless to me...

CAPTCHA: seidg, only a few letters away from what I imagine gets said here a lot...

It is possible that he didn't like it because he didn't get it, you are right about that. But he is saying that isn't the case. I take him at his word.

aloria definitely gave you a shitload of proof. I dunno what else you need. Also most of us are former fans of xkcd, and were fans for a reason. Think about that for a second before you ask for more proof, okay?

"Because, to me, insulting people you barely know, all of whom you know about are a few posts on a rather hateful blog, when you don't know anything about how they behave outside of this environment, that seems pretty baseless to me"

[ellipses cut out because they are pointless]

okay do you not recall calling us losers with no lives? Does that not ring a bell at all with any of that "baseless insult" crap you keep spouting? Stop being offended that we are calling you out on your idiocy, and realize that you are quite possibly the biggest hypocrite alive.

See, but mine was obvious because it was clearly exaggerated and a one-time aside comment, whereas you have been insulting me repeatedly for the past day and a half. There's a pretty big difference, don't try to pretend it's the same.

how was it clearly exaggerated? You cited the many comments that popped up after yours as a reason for you to believe we had no lives. I am citing your lack of basic common sense as a reason for me to believe you are an idiot.

It is the same, especially since you didn't go "you guys i was joking" until finally you felt that you needed to regain some moral highground (which you didn't achieve, btw)

"I've already said, the target audience is geek culture, which I have yet to see any proof that any of you are part of, by the way..."

The fuck you want us to do to prove we're part of "geek culture"? Actually, fuck that, I don't want ot be part of anything called "geek culture," but I like geeky things. I used to be a PYTHON PROGRAMMER for god's sake (thank god I quit that shit job.) You know, Python, the language Randall loves. I recognize most of Randall's funny hilarious geeky references. Proven.

"Really? Because, to me, insulting people you barely know, all of whom you know about are a few posts on a rather hateful blog, when you don't know anything about how they behave outside of this environment, that seems pretty baseless to me..."

All of the shit you've gotten here has been your fault. When intelligent fans post, they may get shit, but they get polite thoughtful responses too. There's a reason we're so bitchy and it's not because it's Monday.

"CAPTCHA: seidg, only a few letters away from what I imagine gets said here a lot..."

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Divided into two convenient categories, based on whether you think this website

Rob's Rants

When he's not flipping a shit over prescriptivist and descriptivist uses of language, xkcdsucks' very own Rob likes writing long blocks of text about specific subjects. Here are some of his excellent refutations of common responses to this site. Think of them as a sort of in-depth FAQ, for people inclined to disagree with this site.